The present invention relates to a new and distinct cultivar of Cotoneaster plant, botanically known as Cotoneaster procumbens and hereinafter referred to by the name ‘Gerald’.
The new Cotoneaster plant is a product of a planned breeding program conducted by the Inventor in Grand Haven, Mich. The objective of the breeding program is to develop new mounding and freely branching Cotoneaster plants with attractive foliage.
The new Cotoneaster plant originated from an open-pollination in 2001 of Cotoneaster procumbens ‘Queen of Carpets’, not patented, as the female, or seed, parent with an unknown selection of Cotoneaster procumbens, as the male, or pollen, parent. The new Cotoneaster plant was discovered and selected by the Inventor in 2005 as a single flowering plant within the progeny of the stated open-pollination in a controlled environment in Grand Haven, Mich.
Asexual reproduction of the new Cotoneaster plant by softwood cuttings in a controlled greenhouse environment in Grand Haven, Mich. since June, 2006 has shown that the unique features of this new Cotoneaster plant are stable and reproduced true to type in successive generations of asexual reproduction.